Montoya surname meaning

Montoya is a Basque and Spanish habitational surname from the hamlet of Montoya near Berantevilla in Álava, in the Basque Country of northern Spain. The name is associated with a landscape of hills and valleys; proposed Basque elements relate to a rise or mound and a hollow. During the Reconquista the surname spread south through Castile and Andalusia, so many later Montoya lines are not from one medieval household. Montoia and De Montoya are useful comparisons. Place is the high-confidence catalog type: the surname identifies a locality, not a trade or ancestor’s given name.